[Qgis-developer] QGIS D3 DataVis Plugin Status Report

[C Hamilton]

I thought I would share my recent accomplishments and my planned
development activities on the d3datavis plugin. The overall goal is to
produce a number of different charts for QGIS data analysis that can be
displayed in a web page. So far I have one visualization and that is the D3
Circular Date/Time Heatmap. See:

https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/qgis-d3datavis-plugin

Scroll down to see an example of it in use.

*D3 Circular Date/Time Heatmap*
The purpose of this is to be able to display 2D circular heatmaps of
temporal date and time distributions in the data. It is somewhat similar to
the ArcGIS data clock.

*Recent Accomplishments*

   1. Updated to version 0.2
   2. Added support for NULL data with a NULL data color.
   3. Added a legend.
   4. Rewrote the original circular D3 heatmap code to support the above
   changes as well as to support graduated colormaps which will be added to
   the QGIS plugin in a future release.

*Planned Improvements*

   1. Rather than just support Date and Time for the axis also support
   other data type categories. This is currently under development.
   2. Add graduated colors with the colors selected from the QGIS color
   ramps.
   3. Allow for manual selection of the min & max values.
   4. Reorganize the code with all of the number crunching in a processing
   worker class.
   5. Any suggestions from the community?

*Next Possible Charts*
Here are some of the ideas of what I think should be done next, but I
welcome your input as to what you think would be the most important so
please let me know what you would like. If someone cares, I am more likely
to work on it.

   1. *Bar Chart*. This could be used for frequency distributions. Do you
   have any other use cases?
   2. *Scatter Plot*. This would be for showing the data in two variables.
   3. *Pie Chart*. For showing categorical distribution of data. I like the
   http://d3pie.org/ chart, but am concerned that it is not being actively
   developed.
   4. *Rectangular Heat Map*. This would be similar to my circular heatmap
   only in a rectangular form.
   5. *Bubble Chart*. I am not sure they really have a practical value, but
   I think they are cool. See http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/4063269.

As much as possible I want to simplify my work. Rather then basing the code
just on D3js it would be nice to use some of the higher level components
such as:

   1. *d3pie* (http://d3pie.org/) - This is a very attractive pie chart and
   I like it, but it has only 7 contributors on GitHub and seems to be
   stagnant.
   2. *D3Plus* (http://d3plus.org/) - Has a number of reusable components -
   19 contributors on GitHub.
   3. *NVD3* (http://nvd3.org/) - Lots of reusable components - 200
   contributors on GitHub.
   4. *C3* (http://c3js.org/) - Also a number of components - 88
   contributors, but there haven't been any updates for over a year.

Is there anything I am missing and do you have any recommendations? I have
not done much D3 programming but can make use of the ideas of what others
have done. If you have any use cases, that helps me to see what needs to be
done.

Thanks,

C. Hamilton
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